Posts Tagged ‘SMITE’

MOBA Monday is a weekly showcase of how to perform, eh, let’s go with adequately – we hope – in a massive online battle arena. The streaming squad features the hottest, upcoming or most interesting titles of their and the communities fancy for a few rounds of PvP shenanigans inour weekly Twitch channel staple.

Walking around QuakeCon 2015 it was exciting to see the smorgasbord of content on display. I’m not referring to the insane amount of creativity showcased in the numerouscase mods or ridiculous communal nature that guilds and alliances create through the internet. Nope, straight up talking about the games being played inside the BYOC. Everything was on display, indie titles, AAA shooters, Quake Live, piles of digital garbage and lots of Rocket League. Holy crap, was there a lot of Rocket League.

Naturally, there was quite a bit of MOBA play going on. This despite Bethesda opting not to show BattleCry, its online multiplayer combat title, at the show. Or really anything for that matter, but that’s a topic for another post. A nice surprise was seeing SMITE at the convention. Not once or twice but over and over. And over. It wasn’t because these people were validating my affection for the game, but gave me new teammates and people to chew the fat with. All that simply made me want to play the game ASAP, which I did, but now I want to play more. So I will!

SMITE: Demigods, Deities and Gods Explained is a column dedicated to introducing prospective players of SMITE to its massive backstory of lore. From the Greek to Hindu, each week we’ll look at two characters from a major pantheon and provide a quick recap of their history and in what capacity their digital incarnation will represent on the field of Hi-Rez Studios’ new MOBA.

Lore: Ravana is one of the major gods in Hinduism. The ten-headed being was the primary antagonist of the Hindu epic Ramayana, one of the major Sanskrit poems from Valmiki. Described as the king of Lanka in the epic, Ravana was the brother of the sleepy Kumbhakarna and Vibhishana born into a powerful family of a great sage and princess. That crown came at a cost breaking family bonds by usurping the throne from his half brother Kubera.

Ravana was universally known as a great scholar, despite being described by some as aggressive and arrogant. He used his scholarly prowess for himself and bestowed it upon others. Even the great Rama once called him the Great Brahmam. That is until Ravana kidnapped Rama’s wife Sita while he was in exile. The dastardly feat began a major war between the powerful beings that rival the epic battles from the Lord of the Rings. The fury of Rama took him through all comers until he stood toe-to-toe with Ravana in singles combat. Ultimately, the Demon King of Lanka was felled. Continue Reading

SMITE: Demigods, Deities and Gods Explained is a column dedicated to introducing prospective players of SMITE to its massive backstory of lore. From the Greek to Hindu, each week we’ll look at two characters from a major pantheon and provide a quick recap of their history and in what capacity their digital incarnation will represent on the field of Hi-Rez Studios’ new MOBA.

Lore: Squirrels, squirrels all types of squirrels. They’re beasts that cover the world finding their niche in the canopies from the deciduous to coniferous. In Norse mythology there was one tree to rule them all, the World Tree known as Yggdrasil. Even the epitome of regrowth couldn’t escape the clingy critters. Ratatoskr traversed the ash day and night spreading the word of those in the massive ecological environment supported by the tree that reached to the heavens.

Specific mentions in the Norse poetics focus on his conversations with a nameless eagle atop Yggdrasil, which are then relayed to Níðhöggr, a wyrm that makes its living within the three roots of the World Tree. Ratatoskr represents our penchant for embellishment and talking behind someone’s back. An assumed trait of the local red squirrel that screams in alarm upon spotting danger. Continue Reading

SMITE: Demigods, Deities and Gods Explained is a column dedicated to introducing prospective players of SMITE to its massive backstory of lore. From the Greek to Hindu, each week we’ll look at two characters from a major pantheon and provide a quick recap of their history and in what capacity their digital incarnation will represent on the field of Hi-Rez Studios’ upcoming MOBA.

Lore: Osiris, along with sisters Isis and Set, remain some of the most famous gods in the Egyptian pantheon. He’s a complicated individual more so than many other gods of his time. Coming to fruition in the earlier dynasties of Egypt, Osiris was linked to realms common to the religions of the world. The realm of the death, resurrection, life and the afterlife were under his control simultaneously or at various times in Egyptian history. As his role in the supernatural world morphed oft did his name melding with local cultures or lesser-known gods. Despite the varying etymology, the largest merger made him Ptah-Seker-Osiris adding Creator God to the aforementioned realms. Continue Reading

MOBA Monday is a weekly showcase of how to perform, eh, let’s go with adequately – we hope – in a multiplayer online battle arena. The streaming squad features the hottest, upcoming or most interesting titles of their and the communities fancy for a few rounds of PvP shenanigans in our weekly Twitch channel staple.

Ah Puch, a peculiar selection from the Maya pantheon, is the latest god to join the Battleground of the Gods. I haven’t been able to take him for a spin quite yet, but have had to deal with his kit, a mix of incredible area of effect damage and debuffs. It’s a bit agonizing depending who you’ve selected. Why is he a peculiar addition to the growing MOBA? Simply because he’s the loosest adaptation of a pantheon to date. Not because, like Kukulkan, the historical lore is shady. Nope, Ah Puch is, effectively, entirely made up.

That’s not entirely fair. It’s not that Hi-Rez Studios made up the Horrific God of Death simply to kit out another magical mage. There’s plenty, nearly endless options in the pantheons of Earth religions past, present and future. It’s more that early western studies of the kingdom and historians conflated mentions of Ah Puch and death gods as one and the same. In reality, scholars of the Maya universe recognize only two death gods, One-Death and Seven-Death, which are considered to be a single God; Death.

Now that you’ve been updated on the lore join me in destroying others or destroying those selecting the fakish Maya god. Giveaways are simply another perk to hearing my nails-on-chalkboard voice!

SMITE: Demigods, Deities and Gods Explained is a column dedicated to introducing prospective players of SMITE to its massive backstory of lore. From the Greek to Hindu, each week we’ll look at two characters from a major pantheon and provide a quick recap of their history and in what capacity their digital incarnation will represent on the field of Hi-Rez Studios’ new MOBA.

Lore: The Maya pantheon has always been the most difficult to source of the SMITE pantheons. That should appear as a conundrum. The Maya civilization only recently collapsed thanks to the introduction of westerners to the Americas in the late 1400s. Cortes kicked it off by pitting alternative natives against their sworn enemies adding them to his impossibly small ranks. Other manipulation and later conquerors thwarted the entire civilization. Eventually. Pockets held out until shortly before the 1700s rolled in. Yet in 300 years a large amount of their largely spoken religious stories have been partially lost, conflated with other or been lost to time.

This is a roundabout way to say that Ah Puch is, largely, a fabrication. Sources we’ve used throughout the life of this column – now in its third year! – stand firm that this Maya death god is not authentic. He did not run Mitnal, the ninth level of the underworld, not have anything to do with Xibalba, the best known name for the Maya underworld, and where the Maya Hero Twins met their match. Continue Reading

SMITE: Demigods, Deities and Gods Explained is a column dedicated to introducing prospective players of SMITE to its massive back story of lore. From the Greek to Hindu, each week we’ll look at two characters from a major pantheon and provide a quick recap of their history and in what capacity their digital incarnation will represent on the field of Hi-Rez Studios’ new MOBA.

Lore: After a recent romp through some lesser known godly beings – to some circles, of course – we’ve returned to the core group from the Greek pantheon with none other than Medusa, the snake-headed gazer. The defining being of the race of Gorgon, Medusa has a storied history with a few origin stories. One of three snake-haired sisters, it matters little if she began her terror as a fair maiden raped by Poseidon then beset by Athena or the horrific being we’ve taken from antiquity. The squabbles of Greek historians is beside the point. What is important, perhaps most important, is that she was the sole mortal of the triplets. Despite the immortality received by Stheno and Euryale pale in historical comparison. And it may be exactly because they could not perish. Continue Reading

SMITE: Demigods, Deities and Gods Explained is a column dedicated to introducing prospective players of SMITE to its massive back story of lore. From the Greek to Hindu, each week we’ll look at two characters from a major pantheon and provide a quick recap of their history and in what capacity their digital incarnation will represent on the field of Hi-Rez Studios’ new MOBA.

Lore: Here we go again. Another test of your Roman versus Greek mythological knowledge. Bellona is the undoubtable a god of war, but which people worshiped her as such? Yes, you’re correct it was the ancient Romans. Tied with her brother Mars, also a god of war, Bellona was earlier known as Duellona. Named so for being associated with the term “battle.” The designation and divinity was so far reaching, so important to Roman culture and conquest that the Roman Senate met in the Templum of Bellonae when discoursing of matters of military strategy pertaining to foreign war.

Given the penchant for outright cribbing of Greek creativity Bellona has few distinctions from her counterpart. No, not Athena, but Enyo. Both were sisters of the male god of war. The pair being born of the same parents, yet often described as wed to one another. In Bellona’s case the holy matrimony is less ironclad. Nerio, a personification of valor, may hold that honor. She does stand out in the contemporary art of the time. Seen with breastplate, shield, sword and other weapons of battle she was seldom unadorned by her military helmet no matter how much the rest of her may have been exposed. Continue Reading